In The Garden of Eden, David Bourne retreats into writing to escape the complications of his life, complications located predominantly in the actions and moods of his young wife, Catherine. He maintains a space of his own in which he writes; a daily regimen governs his work practices. He reflects: “If you can't respect the way you run your life, then definitely respect your craft. At least you know your job” (148). There is comfort in having something of his own that he understands well and can control. Yet Catherine tries in every way to undermine this one thing she has, to diminish it or to appropriate it. Marita, however, appreciates and respects David's work; she is not jealous or threatened by his talent. With Marita he no longer has to guard against incessant insecurities and jealousies; he willingly shares with her the orderly, insular world of his writing and makes himself vulnerable in a new way. His understanding of people and how best to interact with others in the world is altered, if only temporarily, and he is able to draw on a part of his writing previously unknown to him. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In Africa, David learned to "never say anything to anyone" (181). Others cannot be trusted with everything, because people are inclined to use whatever is given to them to pursue only personally beneficial ends, often destroying something meaningful or beautiful in the process. Therefore, at the beginning of the novel, David is watched; he is not free from the world he has created for himself, where nothing exists except the landscapes and characters he creates. Through writing he achieves pure action; he doesn't let anyone into this world, not even marginally. “. . . [Davide] wrote starting from an interior nucleus that could not be divided, much less marked or scratched" (183): since it is exclusively his, no one is able to corrupt or destroy his writing. His art is the logical consequence of his philosophy. David desires total autonomy and has found it in literature. Catherine is threatened by this part of David that she cannot touch. David is his – and he has no one else, no friends, no family – and so he must transform him completely as proof of this, to exercise his freedom of action. Manipulates David into changing his appearance; it changes their sexual dynamic. She and David are "against everyone else," she says (37), and therefore must be together and equal in all things, or at least (contradictorily) be together and equal in the way she imagines. David's reviews of his latest book, his "clippings", infuriate her. He scolds David for keeping and reading them, as if he were obsessive. The clippings are something she is not a part of; they are uniquely David's, they are part of his work. She approves of the “narrative” she is writing, an account of their time together in Europe, because she sees it as a monument to herself. He fears that when he dies, everything he has done and felt will vanish: “. . . I don't want to die and everything goes away” (53). David's narration is the solution. She gradually tries to appropriate the narrative for herself, making plans, and in her final letter to David she actually refers to it as "my book" (237). Catherine despises his stories inspired by the African experiences of her youth. Not only are they writings that he doesn't want her to read or interact with in any way, but they are almost autobiographical and therefore immediately personal to David, something that, obviously, Catherine cannot tolerate. She says: “. . . [T]he stories are just your way of escaping your duty” (190), his duty, it seems, to herand in documenting their lives and experiences. In the end, he burns his stories and clippings to illustrate it and bring his work back to the narrative. Catherine wants to take from David everything that is uniquely his - clippings, writing, individual identity, virility - and she almost succeeds. Marita is at first another complication caused by Catherine. David finds her beautiful, but is against her presence in their small hotel, thinking it will further divide him and Catherine; “To hell with her,” David says several times. She wishes Catherine would take her away. However, as Catherine slides deeper into herself than ever and becomes more eccentric and moody, David grows closer to Marita, realizing, in the end, his love for her: “Christ, it was good to finish [the second story about Africa ] today and have her there. Marita is there without any damn jealousy about the job and let her know what you were looking for and how far you've come. He really knows it and it's not fake. I love her. . .” (204)Marita loves his stories about Africa and expresses appropriately complex feelings about them, where Catherine's reaction is simply disgust – a feeling that is really a disguise for her jealousy and annoyance that David chose to work on these stories rather than on narration. Marita is confident and kind, and David senses it. Unlike Catherine, she does not wish to "destroy" David or the products of his artistry, she admires his talent and wants it whatever David wants. Her affection for David's African stories and relative disinterest in storytelling make her Catherine's metaphorical opposite: she sees a special kind of truth and power in African tales, David's deeply personal ones. His control over this literary world is not a matter of contention, but of appreciation. His control generates high-level work and is therefore worthy of respect. Catherine is too selfish and determined to see it, or at least express it; the fact that the stories are distant from her is enough for her to dismiss them as evidence of David's betrayal. David's time with Catherine only confirms his idea of ​​not telling anyone. At the heart of such philosophy is the belief in innate human selfishness, or rather, the fear that human selfishness leads to the ruin of something important. Indeed, in David's case, Catherine's selfishness and inability to accept her own autonomy over one aspect of her life results in the destruction of two of her best stories, the product of weeks – months – of work. However, Marita and David's burgeoning relationship calls this philosophy into question. Catherine's departure allows the romance between David and Marita to begin to fully realize itself. His sweetness is in direct contrast to Catherine's cruelty. She comforts him and feels the pain of losing her stories just like he does. At a crucial moment after finishing his second story about Africa, he sits and reads with Marita as she reads: “He had never done it before and it went against everything he believed about writing. . . . He couldn't help but want to read it with her and he couldn't help but share what he had never shared and what he had believed couldn't and shouldn't be shared. (203)He willingly shares with Marita the part of himself that he had kept most carefully guarded for a long time: his writing. It is a symbolic statement of the difference between his relationship with Marita versus his relationship with Catherine, in which he could never fully be who he was. With Marita, he can "tell" things, he can reveal himself intimately without fear of being used. David tells Marita after Catherine burns his stories that “[w]hen it's right once you can never do it again. You only do it once for everything"?.